You can find HDTV’s and HDTV compatibles at Walmart, Best Buys and other retail stores, so what is the difference?

Well price for starters, HDTV compatibles should be cheaper to buy but there is a reason for that. You see, HDTV compatibles don’t have a HDTV tuner in them. You are going to need an external tuner from your cable or satellite company to view anything. If you have just an antenna, it’s not going to work for you.

If you buy a HDTV unit it will have the tuner built in and you’ll be able to receive the video and audio signal from your antenna, cable and satellite dish with no problem.

OK, so why would anyone buy a HDTV compatible TV? Let me go on the record and say I would not buy one! But the people that do buy them usually because they just want to play their PS3 and other video games on them or use it as a monitor for their computer. Now that’s fine but if you change your mind six months down the road and want to watch HDTV, you’ll be back to the store spending more money.

A. If you have one or the other stay with them unless you find switching would be cheaper. If you have neither, I would go with Direct or Dish Satellite. I say this not because the picture quality is better then cable but because they offer many more HD channels (this may change in the near future as February  2009 rolls around).

 

Some would say that satellite TV has bad reception in inclement weather, so go with cable. I’ve had Direct TV (satellite) for about 5 or 6 years now, in my home (both, I moved). and I can count on one hand how many times I had a bad signal.  So, as long as you can get a good line of sight from your dish to the satellite, bad reception really is not an issue.

This is one of those times where there is no wrong answer. Base your decision on price and or number of HD channels offered.